Hitched
by Laura Schiller
Summary: Inspired by episode 7.09, "Hard To Say Anything". Big Mac proposes to Sugar Belle, but her reaction isn't what he'd hoped. Having fought to win her freedom back from Starlight Glimmer and her equality laws, will marriage cause Sugar Belle to lose herself again?


Hitched

By Laura Schiller

Based on _My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic_

Copyright: Lauren Faust/Hasbro

When Big Macintosh asked Sugar Belle to marry him, he did it in his customary fashion: with as few words as possible.

It had been a mostly ordinary, if lovely, day for the two of them. He had unloaded his apple delivery, sampled a few of her recent baking experiments (the persimmon pie was good, but the spicy mustard eclairs were definitely a mistake), and walked with her along their favourite mountain trail.

They were sitting together on a wool blanket in a small grassy clearing, looking down at the valley below, listening to the birds. Sugar Belle could feel the stress of her busy day evaporate like dew in the sunlight. Just sitting next to Big Mac, leaning against his solid shoulder, made her feel as if nothing could ever upset her again.

That was before she looked down and saw the necklace on the blanket in front of her. It had two pendants: a green apple cut in half and a cupcake with pink icing.

Their cutie marks.

"Oh!" She picked it up, watching it shimmer. It must have cost quite a bit of his share in the farm's profits. Not that the Apples couldn't afford it, but still … "Is this what I think it is?"

"Yup." Big Mac blushed visibly, even through his red fur.

"You want to marry me?"

He nodded, his green eyes bright with hope, and reached into his saddlebag to drop something else on top of the necklace.

They were blueprints. She wasn't an architect, but even she could recognize that they depicted Sweet Apple Acres from the times she had visited him there. Except with a new addition: a larger, more professional kitchen with a storefront, just for her.

" … and run my bakery on your farm?"

She winced at the sudden shrillness of her own voice, but she couldn't help it. This was not how a young mare was supposed to feel when her special somepony proposed to her, but she couldn't help it.

"They're – they're jes' sketches," he said hastily, sweeping up the blueprints and crumpling them between his hooves. "Ya can change anythin' ya want, o'course."

"No, that's not what I meant." She jumped up and began to pace, avoiding his eyes. "I'm – honored that you asked, really I am, it's just – there are so many fruits I like to bake with besides apples!"

This was ridiculous, she knew, but she couldn't seem to stop the stream of words coming out of her mouth. "I like bananas, cherries, strawberries, and the other day I saw these fascinating Eastern imports at Ponyville Market … what I'm trying to say is, what if I can't fit in at your place?"

There. It was out.

"But … " Big Mac's eyes widened, as if he'd never even considered such a thing. "They all like you!"

"As a guest, of course. But … an outsider living in their home?"

He let out a vehement snort of protest at her calling herself an outsider, but she knew it was true. The Apples were loud, blunt, and extremely set in their ways. On her last visit, she had seen Granny Smith shouting at a row of preserve jars like a Wonderbolt trainer drilling new recruits, and Applejack had an intricate routine when feeding the animals that Sugar Belle still didn't understand.

"I don't suppose you'd like to move here instead," she said, gesturing awkwardly down at her village in the valley below them, the two neat rows of cottages shaped like an equal sign. "We're still rebuilding, you know, after the whole equality thing. We could use a strong pony like you."

"Nope." Big Mac shrugged apologetically, flattened his crumpled blueprint and laid a possessive hoof on it, to keep it from blowing away in the wind. Sweet Apple Acres was where he belonged, that much was obvious to anyone who knew him.

"No, of course not," she said. "Silly of me to ask."

He looked up from the plans he'd made, with so much hope and hard work in them, with such sad eyes that she felt like crying herself.

"I'm … sorry," he said, with a catch in his deep voice. "Didn' mean t' upset ya. I never … it was just …"

"No, _I'm_ sorry - " But the words sounded as drab and flimsy to her as the standard-issue drapes her cottage had during Starlight Glimmer's regime.

Big Mac picked up the blueprint and the necklace, stuffed them into his saddlebag, and walked away. His head hung low, as if straining against a burden heavier than the apple cart had ever been.

Sugar Belle watched him go, wondering if she'd made a terrible mistake – and if so, which one.

/

The first thing she did after returning to the village (slowly, so that Big Mac would already be gone) was invite her friends over and ask them for advice. They gathered around a table at her bakery while she told the story. The more she talked, however, the more she remembered one of the side effects of living with cutie marks. Everyone was free to disagree.

"So the love of your life wants to marry you and you send him away?" Party Favor threw his hooves in the air and slumped back into his chair. "I'll never understand mares."

"I don't understand either," said Sugar Belle ruefully. "I wish I did."

"Are you sure you love him, then?" Night Glider, the dark blue Pegasus, frowned. "If just the idea of living with him makes you panic … "

"It's not that at all!" Sugar Belle protested. "It's just … "

Living with Big Mac was not the issue. She had dreamed about that, in fact: waking up to see his face every morning, giving him a back rub when he was sore after a day in the fields, watching their foals grow up and teaching them her favorite recipes … But other images kept popping up to displace those daydreams in her head.

Apples. Lots of them. Every single member of the Apple family had an apple somewhere in their cutie mark. She'd be the only pony without one. Starlight Glimmer's teachings resonated fearfully in her mind: _In sameness, there is peace. Difference leads to misery._

Their former leader had been wrong, but not completely wrong. There was a twisted logic to the unicorn's beliefs, or Sugar Belle would never have joined her in the first place.

"It's not that complicated," said Night Glider, with an authoritative flare of her wings. "We of all people should understand. She's only just learned how to be Sugar Belle. Why would she want to become an Apple so soon?"

The four of them bowed their heads, uncomfortably silent, as if their past were a ghost the Pegasus had conjured. The two stallions shared a somber look. It had been Party Favor who took the blame for his friends' disobedience back then, who went to prison for their sakes. Double Diamond had led the villagers' charge to get their cutie marks back. _We of all people should understand …_

"So, that Macintosh … " Party Favor bristled with the same brotherly protectiveness she remembered from when Starlight was deposed. "He wants you to change? Is that what he told you?"

"Well … he didn't tell me much of anything," said Sugar Belle. "You know how he is."

Although, come to think of it, she remembered what little he had said: _You can change whatever you want._ That didn't sound like someone trying to impose a lifestyle on her.

"Still, assuming you'll go and be a farmpony without even asking you … "

"Now hold on," said Double Diamond.

The white earth pony had a deep, slow voice not unlike Big Mac's. Also like Big Mac, he rarely spoke, but when he did, he always said something worth listening to.

"That doesn't sound like Big Mac," he said. "Look around you."

He swept his hoof around to include the entire bakery. The more Sugar Belle looked, the more she realized what her friend was talking about.

Her cottage had been a mess when it was first built. That was only to be expected, since the local mason, plumber and carpenter had all been without their cutie marks at the time. It was Big Mac who had, over the course of the past year, made one small repair after another with such matter-of-fact competence that she'd almost taken it for granted. He had re-thatched the roof so it no longer leaked, fixed the plumbing, cleaned the chimney, installed a new oven which used only half as much wood, and even sent his friend Fluttershy to negotiate with the mice in the basement.

There were the new drapes he had put on the window, dyed a bright gold and made of sturdy cotton. There was the painting of the Heavenly Sisters, their manes seeming to ripple in the changing light, where the mandatory equal sign had once hung on the wall. There was the display case he had built for all her baked goods, the reason she had chosen him in the first place. After his silly competition with Feather Bangs, he'd not only come back to clean up the mess, but given her exactly what she wanted. She had known from that moment that Big Macintosh Apple was the one for her.

 _Exactly what she wanted …_

"I'm an idiot," she said out loud.

"No you're not," said Party Favor indignantly.

Night Glider cuffed him lightly with her wing. "And why are you an idiot, Sugar?"

"I started dating Big Mac in the first place because he loves me the way I am. Crazy baking obsession and all."

Night Glider snickered. "Yeah, that's gotta be tough on any stallion. All those tasty desserts … "

"What I mean is – he's the last pony to ever want to change me. Being married will probably do that anyway, but that's only natural … right?"

Double Diamond, who had a wife and two colts at home, nodded and smiled softly.

Once she had arrived at the end of her train of thought, Sugar Belle gulped. "Oh dear. You know what this means, don't you?"

"What?" her three friends chorused.

"Knowing Big Mac, he'll never come back here again because he thinks I rejected him for good. Which means I have to go after him instead."

/

That was how Sugar Belle found herself trotting farther along the trail than she'd gone in years, until her legs ached and her coat was streaked with sweat. The cold mountain air whipped her curly mane into her eyes. She shook it back, squinting ahead

There was Big Macintosh, dragging his empty cart at a pace that made her wonder if she could ever have caught up with him on a normal day.

"Wait!" she yelled, as soon as she could catch her breath.

He stopped so suddenly, the cart kept rolling and bumped into his rump.

She must have rehearsed what she wanted to say in her mind dozens of times, but what came out was something completely different. Truth be told, she'd been more envious of Feather Bangs than attracted, really; she could use some of the young poet's eloquence right now.

"I – I want - to keep my name," she blurted out, dragging her tired legs the last few steps to catch up to him.

Big Mac turned to watch her, his face a study in mixed emotions. Joy. Disappointment. Confusion. Frustration. Hope.

"No offense, but … 'Sugar Apple' or 'Apple Belle' … doesn't sound like me. And … I want to bake whatever I feel like … and put my cutie mark on the storefront sign."

He slipped out of his harness and took a tentative step toward her. Then another. His eyes, greener than the freshest spring leaves, never left her face.

"What I'm trying to say is … I love you, Big Macintosh. And I'd love to marry you. But I won't give up being who I am."

Big Mac was a stallion of action. Before she could so much as blink, he was standing with his cheek pressed to hers and his nose buried in her mane, so close they could feel each other's heartbeat. She breathed in his scent of hay, sunshine and apples. Getting her cutie mark back had been the happiest moment of her life – until now.

"Never asked ya to," said Big Mac, giving her a bemused smile that turned into the purest, brightest look of delight she had ever seen. "Wanna come along an' tell my folks?"

"Sure!"

He tipped his head at her, then at the cart, inviting her to jump in and let him carry her.

"Tempting," she said. "But you know, they don't call it getting hitched for nothing. I'll carry my share, mister, or I won't go."

She adjusted the harness so that it fit both of them. He watched her dubiously, probably calculating the difference in their heights and what that would do to the balance, but then shrugged and brushed his nose against her ear.

She giggled. "Okay, if you keep doing that, we won't arrive until nightfall."

He winked at her as they set off.


End file.
